Introduction

10.1163/9789004262225_002

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Chapter Summary

This book grapples with some of the most important, but often unanticipated developments in analyses of capitalist society - namely, analyses of the ongoing existence of interstate competition, of militarised foreign policy, and of other international, at times violent conflicts. In many places throughout this study, the author refers to geopolitics rather than imperialism, particularly because the latter term too often connotes the open use of violence, or more specifically war between nation states. The book attempts to bring together the evolution of geopolitical phenomena with an analysis of the fundamental structural characteristics of capitalism, broadly defined. It hopes to make a contribution to explaining the specific world disorder that toggles between integration, US hegemony, and rivalry. In contrast to the political attractiveness of globalisation rhetoric, the book represents an attempt to understand conceptually both the tendencies towards integration and towards rivalry that characterise contemporary capitalism.